Number stolen by plan.com

[CharlieM]

Please help, I’m in limbo!

I was duped by plan.com who at first convinced me they were O2 and then passed me onto a business account manager who was ‘powered by O2’ and signed up. I also gave them control of my number by requesting a PAC code. Yeah I know, stupid me.

It felt a bit dodgy so I immediately contacted O2 who told me I’d been scammed. I asked them to maintain my account, I told plan.com I wanted to return to O2, I told my bank not to accept any new direct debits. The O2 guy said not to worry, he’d contacted the fraud team.

Cut to 4 days later, this morning, and O2 texts me with ‘sorry you’re leaving us. We’ll be disconnecting you (today)’ and sure enough my network is dead and I don’t have a phone number.

I go to my local O2 store, they can’t do anything but let me use their landline to call O2. I speak to another customer service guy and he tells me the fraud team are now on the case and I’ll hear from them within 10 days.

I immediately came to these forums and saw horror stories of the fraud team never contacting them because it’s not customer facing. I’m now worried that my phone number is in the ether and I’ll never hear anything back.

Does anyone have experience of this problem? What are the odds of me actually hearing from the fraud team and getting my number back? I feel like O2 customer service is giving me the runaround. Do you have any advice on how to sort this mess out?

Big thanks in advance 

[Bambino]

@CharlieM We're all customers just like you, so our advice is limited as we don't have access to anyone else's account. If the problem is now with the fraud team, you don't have any option but to leave it to them and wait for them to contact you. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, but it's in their hands.

You can contact O2 via social media, if you want to try that route but I doubt they'll tell you anything different:
Facebook (https://o2uk.co/O2CFB), Twitter (https://o2uk.co/O2CTW), or Instagram (https://o2uk.co/O2CIG)

[madasaf1sh]

@CharlieM 

I am sorry to say, and this wont be what you want to here;  but I very much doubt the fraud team will do anything, as you gave them the PAC code, which terminated your relationship with o2 directly, and you agreed to Plan.com's terms and conditions on the phone..  A quick search would have told you how bad plan.com are.. 

Plan.com will also have all the call recordings where you willingly agreed to this. 

Your best course of action is to try to get plan.com to cancel the contract or allow you to port the number back to o2., or try and take it to the CIDR service / Trading Standards / CAB

The moral is never accept anything over a cold call...

[Spenny]

@CharlieM Have you tried to speak to Plan about this?  If you get the sim card from them you can cancel contract or get a PAC code and come back to O2.

[madasaf1sh]

@Spenny 

Plan.com sell business contracts so no cooling off period, and they are scamming gits and will charge the OP, i assume for the full 36months of the contract. 

[Enlli]

@Spenny They are one of O2's "Trusted Partners" and not the only one that acts in this way and whose name crops up here from time to time. The fact that they have not been reigned in by O2 says as much about O2 as it does them

[Spenny]

@madasaf1sh @Enlli 😮

"Trusted Partner" 🤣🤣

[RachelM334]

@CharlieM This is exactly what has happened to me! How did you resolve the issue? Any help would be very much appreciated 

[Oxonian]

@RachelM334 

Please tell us a bit more about what has happened to you. 

I believe that trying to interest Trading Standards might be worth a 'phone call, although I must admit that I am not aware of anyone achieving success via that route.